One last theory from me. Seems I just can't help myself sometimes.

Anyway, I just finished reading the TorChat with Brandon Sanderson and a few ideas popped into my head. First, the chat:

"There are three questions Brandon is not allowed to answer about the Wheel of Time:
1. Who Nakomi was.
2. How Rand lit the pipe at the end of the series.
3. How Rand and Moridin swapped bodies.

Not even Brandon knows what’s going with Rand’s pipe-lighting at the end of A Memory of Light. “I put it in as RJ instructed, and I know nothing more about it than fandom does, I’m afraid.”

The very final scene, where Rand lights his pipe and heads off into the world was the ending scene that Robert Jordan wrote when it became clear that he would not finish the series on his own. The entire epilogue is Jordan’s, barring a few small Loial inserts and Perrin’s scenes, and was written and not dictated."


It appears to me that Brandon doesn't know everything, and RJ hiimself left us dangling with a few things, including, IMO, the introduction of the character Nakomi. (She was the "Aiel" that Aviendha met on her second trip to Rhuideen in ToM).

Here are some of the things we learn about Nakomi according to Aviendha:

She wears Aiel garb. Not cadin’sor or the garb of a Wise One; dark skirt, tan blouse, shawl and a kerchief.
She has graying hair, furrowed skin, appears middle aged and carries no weapons.
Aviendha could not sense an ability to channel in her.
Aviendha notes that while she doesn’t wear the clothing of a Wise One, there is something about her.

Nakomi seemed to have appeared out of nowhere, sneaking up on Aviendha unaware. (A mean trick, that) She asks to share water and puts on tea to boil. Aviendha notes that the fire has grown very warm and there appears to be more coals than there should be. They go on to talk about the Aiel and their future, etc. Nakomi serves up a meal that Aviendha notes is better than any she had eaten in the wetlands, and Nakomi leaves, saying she needs to "see to nature."

The whole scene is surreal, splashed with hints that there is something "special" about Nakomi, and I believe there is. From Wikipedia:

"Earth-Mother, aka Nookomis - "Algonquin legend says that "beneath the clouds lives the Earth-Mother from whom is derived the Water of Life, who at her bosom feeds plants, animals and men" She is known as Nokomis, the Grandmother."

So, let's just pretend for the moment that Nakomi is "Mother Nature" or the "Earth-Mother".

Now let's fast-forward to Rand exiting the Pit of Doom in aMoL, carrying Moridin:
"Rand tripped. The body in his arms was so heavy. He slipped to the ground.
He could...see, just faintly. A figure kneeling down beside him."Yes," a woman whispered. He did not recognize the voice. "Yes, that's good. That is what you need to do."
"He blinked, his vision fuzzy. Was that Aiel clothing? An old woman, with gray hair? Her form retreated, and Rand reached toward her, not wanting to be alone. Wanting to explain himself. "I see the answer now," he whispered. "I asked the Aelfinn the wrong question. To choose is our fate. If you have no choice, then you aren't a man at all. You're a puppet...""

I am going to go out on a limb here and say that the "Aiel" woman waiting outside the Pit for Rand is Nakomi. She performs the "Soul/Body switch between Rand and Moridin. (Something along the lines of the First-Sister bonding we witnessed between Elayne and Aviendha.)

That leaves us with the how. Aviendha said that Nakomi couldn't channel, and yet, strange things happened that Aviendha couldn't explain. Back to Rand in aMoL:
"By instinct, he reached for the One Power to light it. (his pipe).
He found nothing. No saidin in the void, nothing. He paused, then smiled and felt an enormous relief. He could not channel. Just to be certain, he tentatively reached for the True Power. Nothing there either.
He regarded his pipe, riding up a little incline to the side of Thakan'dar, now covered in plants. No way to light the tabac. He inspected it for a moment in the darkness, then thought of the pipe being lit. And it was."

So what's going on? Let's go back to when Rand was sealing the Bore:

"Rand hurled the Powers forward with his mind and braided them together. Saidin and Saidar at once, the True Power surrounding them and forming a shield on the Bore.
He wove something majestic, a pattern of interlaced saidar and saidin in their pure forms. Not Fire, not Spirirt, not Water, not Earth, not Air. Purity. Light itself. This didn't repair, it didn't patch, it forged anew.
With this new form of the Power, Rand pulled together the rent that had been made here long ago by foolish men.
He understood, finally, that the Dark One was not the enemy.
It never had been."

I believe that what Rand is doing to light his pipe, is using both saidin and saidar, both halves of the One Power, in Pure Form, (no weaves). It is after all, "One" power. This provides the story with the irony of why the Bore was drilled in the first place, (so men and women didn't have to work in tandem).

Nakomi also uses the same "One" Power, (hence the reason Aviendha doesn't sense her ability). I believe she is, in essence, an avatar of the Creator, (along the lines of the Dragon), doing a little damage control for the Dragon Reborn.